Transport Minister Dipuo Peters has officially opened the Chota Motala Interchange on the N3 in KwaZulu-Natal, a move she described as a milestone in the country’s efforts to improve and develop sustainable transport infrastructure and services.
“A project of this magnitude, which speaks volumes for itself, is a true reflection of our efforts to enhance the social and economic development of our country through a sound and sustainable transportation system,” the minister said on Saturday.
The R442-million project is named after political veteran Dr Mahomed Moosa Motala, who passed away in 2005.
Minister Peters used the occasion to highlight some of government’s efforts to modernise infrastructure in the past 20 years.
“We have more tarred roads than the rest of sub-Saharan Africa combined, and we have the tenth largest roads network in the world. These assets are worth in excess of over R1 trillion, which is equal to our national budget for a year,” she said.
The South African national road network consists of 19 704 km of roads, which seamlessly connect major cities, towns and rural areas, supporting economic growth and social development, and contributing to job creation in the country.
Minister Peters said close to 1 500km of new roads or lanes had been built in the country in the past 20 years.
She said the country needed to spend R30 billion a year on maintaining roads, but could only spend that amount on both maintenance and new construction.
“Sanral therefore has a very distinct mandate to finance, improve, manage and maintain the national road network – the economic arteries and backbone of South Africa.”
Toll roads comprise only 15.8% of the total national road network, and are funded in the main from borrowings on capital markets.
With regard to its projects, Minister Peters said she expected the South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) to make every effort to promote transformation by ensuring that small, medium and micro enterprises are exposed to work experiences that would otherwise not have been possible.
According to the minister, in the last financial reporting period, Sanral awarded 255 contracts worth R11.6 billion for new works, rehabilitation and improvement, periodic and special maintenance, routine road maintenance, community development and professional consulting engineering, among other projects.
“Furthermore, Sanral spent R2 billion on contracts with SMMEs … 18 161 people were trained in elements of road building, of which 7 252 were women,” Minister Peters said.
In terms of job creation, 110 401 job opportunities of varying durations were created.
The minister said government was spending significant resources on modernising transport infrastructure because the country’s economic growth depended on the ability to move people, goods and services.
“Without these investments, we will not be able to export much more than we currently do and will not meet our economic growth targets.
“This reality makes the role that Sanral plays in our economy critical, and we need to support it to ensure that it meets our expectations in this regard,” she said. – SAnews.gov.za
Mohammed Moosa Motala was born in 1920 in Durban, Natal. In 1938 Motala matriculated at Sastri College and studied medicine in Bombay, India, from 1939. It was at the height of the Indian struggle for liberation against British colonialism. At Sastri College, Motala became involved in student politics. After qualifying as a medical doctor in 1947 and doing his internship, he returned to South Africa to set up a medical practice in Pietermaritzburg, the second Black doctor to do so.
Dr Mahomed Moosa Motala has an arterial road named after him in Pietermaritzburg. It does not bear his full name nor does it carry the honorific, doctor. It is simply known as Chota Motala Road. Chota means small in Urdu, as in younger brother or uncle, and this was how Motala was affectionately known by his family, friends and political activists. Motala was 83 years old when he died, after a long illness, at his Mountain Rise home on Friday, 20 May 2005. Born in Dundee on 14 June 1921, he matriculated at Sastri College in Durban in 1938. He studied medicine in India, after stowing away on a ship at the age of 18 to get there. Motala returned to South Africa in 1948 and immediately became involved in politics.
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